Twins clean the slate, tie up Yankees series

The Twins managed a pretty amazing comeback Tuesday evening, recovering from a four-run deficit in the eighth inning before Joe Mauer brought home the winning run with a broken-bat RBI single in the tenth. Man, they needed that win. Not just to beef up their sorry season record so far, but to save some face in what has been an embarrassing decade in the Bronx.

My favorite part of the game was not the rally -- thanks to Nick Swisher's graceful fielding -- it was Matt Capps' strong performance and victory. The husky right-hander tossed two perfect innings on just 16 pitches in relief of Brian Duensing. Let's make a habit of that, Matty. Joe Nathan throwing a 1-2-3 inning to earn his second save, including a strikeout by Derek Jeter to end the game, was my second favorite part.

Carl Pavano returns to his old stomping grounds to take the hill tonight against fellow righty Freddy Garcia in game 3 of the four-game set at 6:05pm. Now that the Twins have officially avoided the sweep, are you feeling cocky enough to call a series split or even a win, or just lucky that they got one at all?

If you couldn't tell, I love running contests. The fellas over at DiamondCentric Apparel, who have brought you such doozies as the Thome is My Homey t-shirt, have a new Jim Jam gem for you. So, Marea and I are holding a contest at Babes Love Baseball in which a random commenter will receive the spankin' new Mashin' Taters t-shirt, courtesy of Thome's first home run of the season. Click here to enter.

Suzanne Solheim, known to her friends as Sooze, is a long-time baseball blogger who lives in St. Cloud. She blogs about the Twins for startribune.com and also writes about the game on her other blog, Babes Love Baseball. Follow her on Twitter @babeslovebball